Ashes and Bonfires
by The Eye of the Crow
Summary: Raito and Teru both survive that fateful day in the warehouse and escape to Europe. However, Teru's faith in Raito is shattered: Why would God need a plan B? Raito/Mikami, slightly AU. Be careful and don't dance, or you'll drop down cold as stone. Oh, but I did dance, and I dropped down cold as stone, Teru thought. But then I stood up, and now I'm beginning to feel warm again.


**Title: **Ashes and Bonfires

**Pairing: **Raito/Mikami

**Warning: **Explicit slash

**Wordcount: **8219

**Disclaimer: **Death Note belongs to its respective owners; for the translation of Matsuo Bashō's frog haiku I use Donald Keene's version.

* * *

**Ashes and Bonfires**

* * *

_It was the language_, Teru thought. With his fluent, impeccable English and very good French, Raito Yagami was clearly expecting to master this small, irrelevant language, to conquer it like a mighty emperor does a weak kingdom. Yet it showed resistance; whenever he was forced to speak it, the words for which he searched so desperately turned out mangled and distorted, bereft of meaning. Despite that, he always managed to get them what they needed. They had food and shelter, and the community seemed to have accepted them. To manage all that alone, after their only protector had disappeared, with not a single experience with the language and local culture, should seem admirable. Somehow, it didn't.

A man and a woman were standing just a few steps outside his window, arguing, he presumed. But one could never tell with these people. For all he knew, it could be a perfectly friendly conversation, or an exchange of pleasantries about weather. She wore a long green skirt, glaringly unmatching to her orange top, while his clothes were rather non-descript, except for the big shiny curved knife at his belt. Framed by the iron bars of the cellar window, they presented a complete view, and their raised voices sounded like crows cooing and thunder and car brakes. All the vowels and consonants were in their places, fitting there as snugly as a leather glove on a hand and somehow, this was _perfection_. He, the fallen God, _Raito_ was achingly imperfect, and his fumbling with the language gave it away. Among other things.

The man, whom he suspected to be a brother or a cousin of one of his fellow loggers, now held the knife in his left hand, idly swirling it in between his fingers. This was the moment when, in another life, he would reach for a simple black notebook and write the man's name in it. Here, the woman just laughed, made a rude gesture and walked away. The man stood still for a while, then put a hand in his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit one and took a drag, his eyes swaying downwards, to the cellar window. When he spotted its inhabitant, he greeted him with a crooked grin.

A pile of ash fell down from the cigarette, twirling slightly in the breeze, and Teru followed it with his eyes. Two hundred and eighteen black names on every white page in the black notebook, white always goes first and if you know how to play, you win. That was his world, black and white like the little television he and his mother used to have, and now – all there was left was this gray ash, and nothing made sense anymore.

Their eyes met, and the man uttered a word in the language, a word so simple that even Teru understood.

But this is not how the story starts.

* * *

It could start in many different places, but it would probably be best to say that it starts in the warehouse.

On January 28th, the New World should have come. What came instead was the cruelest disappointment a man can experience – Teru thought he had found God, truly found him and was acknowledged by him, here on this Earth, but this illusion was shattered by words and bullets. What came next he remembered through a red haze. His desperation made him stab himself with his pen, and although the injury wasn't that serious, he lost quite a lot of blood, as he was told later. Later, when he was recovering in a private hospital somewhere, when he was also told that there was a plan B. That Kira's God complex didn't prevent him from making precautions, in case the meeting in the warehouse didn't go well. The plan that secured both his and Kira's survival was complex, as could have been expected, and Styrin explained it to him in a loving detail. But that was completely lost on Teru; his unseeing eyes were staring past the tubes stuck in his arms, past the Caucasian man with unsettling watery-blue gaze, past the high, narrow window letting in fragile and spidery rays of pale winter sun. When he heard that Raito Yagami took in account failure as an alternative and prepared for it in advance, enlisting the help of an organization that was supposed to be long since eradicated by his own hand – something just broke in him. It wasn't as painful as seeing what he saw in the warehouse, but in some way it was worse, because this time, his mind wasn't clouded like it was before, dimmed first by anticipation and then, for one unforgettable moment, by sheer ecstasy. Now his mind was crystal clear; he was so sane it hurt.

Why would God need a plan B?

Teru realized that Styrin was talking about his country again, the place where he was going to get them, one way or another, and interrupted him:

"When can I see him?" he asked, and his voice came out rusty with disuse.

Styrin made an indiscernible gesture with his hand, one that seemed strangely foreign.

"Soon," the gangster said. "When he is ready, he'll send for you."

He left not long after that, leaving Teru to his thoughts.

* * *

The meeting was awkward. Of all the scenarios he made up during the two weeks that had passed since Styrin's last visit, awkward was not one of them. He expected… well, _something_, although what that might be was hard to pinpoint. The child in him expected miracle. The bitterly disappointed, sobered adult hoped for an apology. The loyal servant expected precise orders.

Instead, he got awkwardness.

He was sitting on an uncomfortable metallic chair, repressing the urge to fidget.

Raito Yagami was half-sitting, half-lying on his bed. His fingers were absent-mindedly drumming against the light green mug with a lukewarm tea he was cradling. Teru's own tea stood on Raito's nightstand, forgotten. His whole attention was focused on the man in the bed, his gaze drinking into the shadows under his eyes and around his mouth, as though they could provide the answer to all his questions.

Yagami was talking, in a low, melodic voice, talking about that country. But it was very different from what Styrin was telling him before. Styrin was describing the defunct political system, the underworld workings, the reasons why this country was just ideal for them to hide in and bide their time. Curiously, Yagami didn't even touch a subject like that; he was talking about the native music, the long, thin pipes that produced a strange, haunting sound, especially when played in the valleys, the mountains with narrow passes and deadly avalanches coming in April and May, when they were no longer expected, some sort of delicious, but awfully smelly cheese-

Teru was tired of sitting on the uncomfortable chair, his body lately unused to any but horizontal position. He wished he could tune that voice out, to erase that beautiful, but completely irrelevant picture that was being painted for him. But it was impossible. No matter how strong his wish, he was still latching on every sound that left that perfect, shaded mouth.

* * *

Teru had always liked flying. He enjoyed the feeling that it was, contrary to many people's fears, the safest, by all means the fastest, and since he always flew in the business class, also the most comfortable way to travel. He enjoyed the little rituals it entailed – the female flight attendant, pretty in that sterile, advertising way that doesn't rouse any desires, the emergency exit is placed on your left, smile, please fasten your seatbelts and turn off your electronic devices, tea or coffee?

He was originally quite pleased with the notion of flying; things were looking too dangerous for that for a while, and they were considering taking a boat and then using the Trans-Siberian Railway, but eventually it turned out that the danger of exposure would be even higher, so they settled on flying.

Disguised and equipped with all the necessary fake documents, they managed to cross the security and get on board, in economy class where the college students leaving for a study exchange, who they were trying to impersonate, rightly belonged.

While the plane shook in another violent turbulence and the baby two rows ahead of them gave out a long wail, Teru was reconsidering his opinion on flying. The former prosecutor's eyes were fixed on the white mass of clouds outside the tiny window, but the muffled sounds from the neighboring seat involuntarily brought him a clear picture of his former God, retching into a brown paper bag as though it could save his life.

_The doctors were right. You are in no shape to travel_. He thought of pointing that out, but eventually decided against it because he found it pointless. As he did a lot of things these days, actually.

"Do you have a tissue? I've run out of mine," a voice asked him, trying to sound matter-of-factly but instead getting out rather shaky.

Teru wordlessly handed him the object; when they hands brushed, another turbulence started, even worse than the last one. Although his seatbelt was fastened, Raito Yagami still instinctively grabbed for something to support him; it was Teru's hand. The cold, clammy fingers clasping around his wrist felt like steel handcuffs.

* * *

The scenery was quite pleasant. It was not picturesque with vine-covered little houses with shingle roofs and cozy gardens, nor was it dramatically romantic with steep hills, black lakes and castle ruins. Well, maybe the village looked more inviting in the spring and summer, but now in late winter the naked, stern trees, grayish ground and unfamiliar figures wrapped in thick woolen coats and jackets didn't make him think of any documentaries he saw on life in Europe, which were mostly the kind of travel guides that makes one feel like planning a holiday. Here he was reminded of homelessness, of exile, which was exactly where he was.

Houses were on the small side, usually only one storey high with deep running cellars used for storage, full of apples, garlic, pickles, wines and strong spirits. There was a school, two pubs, a convenience store and three churches, which struck him as curious, for the village had but a few hundred inhabitants. There was a bus stop, but they were to learn that hardly any buses came here. The closest larger village, where the post office was, lay fifteen miles away, behind the gray hills; and it was a long way from any major town.

Styrin told them to wait in front of one of the houses and went inside. It was a rather shabby building with light yellow cracked walls and with casement windows in a desperate need of a new paint job. There was no front garden, which, as Teru noted, was the case with most of the houses here, but behind the house lay a generous yard, going down in a gentle slope. Shortly after, Styrin reemerged with a small elderly woman with darkish, wizened complexion, leaning heavily on her cane.

"This is my mother," Styrin introduced her, but didn't tell them her name. Well, Teru couldn't really blame him. "She will take care of you while I'm gone." The old woman didn't say anything at all, and her face, reminding him of an old apple, didn't show any expression. Styrin had already explained to them that he would have to leave immediately for supplies and weapons, but hearing that was one thing; to actually see his dark blue, Soviet-made angular car disappear down the hill felt strangely disheartening.

"He is not coming back," he felt like saying. "Don't be childish, of course he is," Yagami would retort, "why would he bother to help us, to take us all the way here? If he wanted to betray us, he could have done it in Japan."

But Teru wasn't thinking about betrayal. What he was experiencing resembled the feeling he used to have as a child, when his mother took too long in coming back, and he stared onto the dark street, waiting for the familiar coat – the beige one, the blue coat she only wore for special occasions – to show up and separate itself from the flow of passers-by by heading to their front door. Sometimes, when the silence in the small flat was oppressing him, tightening his throat, and there was no beige coat to be seen, even though the flow of passers-by had already broken down into a diminishing number of hastening individuals, he felt as though his mother would never come back, that something terrible happened to her. One such evening, his fears came true.

But he didn't tell Yagami any of this, of course. What would be the point in that?

Yagami, using the basic vocabulary he learned in the hospital and revised on the plane between the bouts of nausea, introduced the two of them, using their fake names. The woman didn't offer them any introduction of her own; she merely nodded and beckoned them to follow her inside. Again, Teru couldn't blame her. His eyes saw her name, of course, and he would divulge it to Yagami later if asked, but he couldn't think of any gain this knowledge could possibly bring them.

In the house it was quite dark, and Teru thought that the windows needed not only to be painted, but thoroughly washed as well. The old woman, leading them forward in a sluggish pace, was obviously unable to handle the house anymore. Finally they arrived to the kitchen, and Teru's suspicions were confirmed. All surfaces were scattered with pots and dishes, some empty, some covered in dried up food, all kinds of cooking utensils, bottles, empty or half-full, newspapers and other sundry items. The room smelled of food, decay, old age and medications.

The old woman pointed at the table and they sat down, cleaning the space right in front of them by shoving the items in the way to the edge of the table. She handed them two plates, which were adorned with the blue onion pattern common in these parts and thankfully clean, and used a ladle to load them with a dish she took from a big brown pot. It was some kind of potato dish with a lot of stewed vegetables and some smoked meat. It tasted surprisingly good, given the state of the kitchen. The same could be said about the strong tea she brought them afterwards – so strong, actually, that Teru supposed it was laced with something, but he was too thirsty to care.

While they ate and drank, the old woman was busying herself around the kitchen, probably cleaning, all the time mumbling to herself. He was sure he caught the name "Andras" a couple of times – Styrin's first name – but as for the rest, he didn't understand a word. He looked at Yagami who, even in such a place, was comporting himself so elegantly that he somehow managed to give the impression of a man enjoying a sophisticated meal in a high-class restaurant, but the other man just shrugged his shoulders. The language skills he had acquired so far obviously didn't extend to mumbling.

Never mind the actual words, from her tone alone Teru still had some idea what she was talking about; she was probably complaining about all sorts of people her criminal son brought to her poor home.

This hypothesis was confirmed later, when they were lead to the cellar that would serve as their dwelling. For a cellar, it was quite spacious, with high ceilings and solid floors. There were two beds, a couple of seedy mattresses, a simple table with two chairs and an indiscernible amount of empty bottles and cigarette butts. For a brief moment, Teru was shocked by a realization that he, an excellent prosecutor, university-educated, honorable, useful member of the society, was to take refuge in a criminals' lair. This thought managed to invoke in him the red blur of images from the warehouse, the familiar feeling of insanity tugging at his consciousness, and he willed it away with all he had. Instead, he concentrated on his immediate surroundings, breathing in the dampness rising from the walls and staring at the pool of light the high-up window in front of him painted on the dirty floor.

"Not exactly a hotel suite, but it will do," he heard Yagami say, and a moment later there was an unmistakable thud of a human body hitting a bed. He looked at the other man, who uncaringly splayed his limbs across the unclean sheets, his eyelids closed and surrounded by the shadows of fatigue Teru had grown used to see there. Then his eyes turned to the other bed; he too was tired after the long flight and a bumpy ride in Styrin's weathered car, but he couldn't bear to touch that bed, let alone lay down on it.

* * *

It was much later when Teru, too, could recline. It was pitch-black outside, and not much lighter inside, as the whole space was lit by a single bare light-bulb hanging from the ceiling.

While he was cleaning, Yagami occasionally thrashed from side to side, letting out something resembling a moan, but didn't wake. Not that Teru took any unnecessary caution to ensure he wouldn't; he gathered all the bottles and they made horrible rattling noise as he carried them away, putting them in the garbage can in front of the house. He briefly mused over the possibility of waste sorting here and then dismissed it as unlikely. He disposed of the cigarette butts and other debris and then swept the floor with a broom he found in a tool shed adjacent to the house. Just when he was half-way through with the sweeping, the old woman came in, probably roused by all the noise, and looked at him strangely.

_Well, I don't think that any of her previous guests did this, _Teru thought, when an idea occurred to him. As fast as possible, lest the woman leave, he finished the sweeping and took the dirty bed sheets from the unoccupied bed. He handed them to her, first making a grimace and then joining his palms in a pleading gesture. She nodded in understanding, took the dirty sheets away and soon returned with two clean sets. Teru bowed his thanks and she said something most likely meaning "you're welcome", first words she said directly to any of them.

He made his bed, but if before he felt too clean to sleep in such a dirty bed, now the situation was reverse. He went to a smaller room, where he had previously spotted a sink. Definitely not a hotel suite, but at least it was something. He washed himself as best as he could, brushed his teeth and then returned to the main room, where he turned off the weak, but stern light and finally lay down. As he lowered himself, the half-healed wound he gained by stabbing his chest with a pen began to throb, probably from the extortion, and just like on other such occasions the images from the warehouse threatened to overflow his mind. Most of the things that could possibly serve as a distraction were now covered with darkness, except for the white walls, dimly glowing in the dark. So Teru looked at them, trying to count all the cracks he could make out in the dark, breathing in the dampness and imagining how he would cover them in fresh paint, doing it with own his hands, for the first time in his life. This idea gave him a strange, new kind of pleasure.

* * *

When he next opened his eyes, it was almost noon, and he woke up to a sight of Raito Yagami sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, some kind of cake and a book, which Teru recognized as a textbook on the language of this country. His face was still pale, but the signs of fatigue were now less prominent, partly because he obviously washed himself and changed into fresh clothing. He looked perfectly at ease in his new surroundings.

At the sound of Teru's feet touching the floor, Yagami turned to face him.

"I'd wish you a good morning, but I don't know whether it'd be still acceptable at this hour," he said good-humoredly. "Thank you for making this place habitable. Also, I guess your orderly nature has warmed the heart of our old woman; look what she made us," he said pointing at the coffee and cake. As Teru approached the table, a truly wonderful smell of freshly brewed coffee and pastries filled his nostrils. It tasted just as wonderful; he couldn't remember when was the last time he had breakfast this good.

When his rapture over the breakfast subsided, he became aware of the eyes watching him and looked up from his plate.

Having his attention, Yagami handed him a single sheet of paper. Before Teru could focus on the meaning, he felt a stab of envy at the beauty of the characters. His own handwriting was rather neat and tidy, but he could never achieve such flowing elegance.

"As you see, it is a list of suggestions on what needs to be done with this cellar. I think we'll be staying here for a while, so we should make this as comfortable as possible," Yagami said and Teru finally started to pay attention to the contents.

Most of those things he had himself thought of – to get a proper shower, to do something about the toilet (Yagami said that Mrs. Styrin told them to use the outhouse in the garden, which he claimed to be in a dreadful state), to find something like a wardrobe to put their clothes in and some shelves for other things, and – he read this with an inappropriate feeling of joy – to paint the walls. There were also some ideas that didn't occur to him, like adding a small kitchen corner so they wouldn't be dependent on what Mrs. Styrin brought them.

"Do you agree? Do you have anything to add?" Yagami asked.

Teru gave a short nod, waited a couple of seconds and then shook his head. Yagami's eyes slightly narrowed at the sight, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he said:

"When we are finished here, I think we should start helping the old woman. We could only benefit from that."

* * *

They set to work and found out what the phrase "manual labor" really meant. Even after they – especially Raito – managed to more or less recover from their wounds, it was still hard. For one, it was very different from a gym work-out. Muscles he didn't know he had hurt him at the end of the day, and first couple of days he went to sleep totally exhausted. When they finished the alterations of their cellar, which itself took much longer than expected, they moved to work upstairs. Teru thought that it just needed a lot of cleaning, but it turned out that more than that was necessary.

The floor in the hall was molding so they had to redo it. Yagami took a long time measuring and drawing plans and persuaded the old lady to buy boards. When the boards arrived, Teru knew with one look that the length was not right. Yagami pursed his perfect lips in a vain attempt to hide his disappointment.

"I'll get us a chainsaw," he said finally. After some more haggling with the old lady, a man appeared with the required instrument. Yagami said his thanks, but eyed the saw with an obvious distrust. "He didn't bring any protection glasses," he mumbled, holding the saw as gingerly as one might hold an infant who just soiled himself.

Teru made a gesture for Yagami to pass him the chainsaw. When the other man complied, he silently started to saw the boards. With the smell of fresh-cut wood in his nostrils and the roaring sound successfully isolating him from the rest of the world, Teru felt happy, just like before when they were painting walls.

Then there were windows that needed replacing, chimney falling apart, unstable plumbing… Yagami half-jokingly suggested that it might be easier to just knock this house down and build a new one, and Teru could see his point. But little by little they saw the house change under their hands, to the obvious delight of Mrs. Styrin.

Whenever Yagami had a little time left, he used the opportunity to study from his language textbook. Sometimes in the early morning, when Yagami was still asleep, Teru would take the book to read it himself. In the bright morning sun those words seemed fresh and full of life.

Yagami practiced his conversational skills mainly on Mrs. Styrin; Teru didn't practice at all, instead watching Yagami's efforts at communication that often resulted in misunderstanding with the old woman, who would then smack her lips in obvious distaste and walk away, her cane hitting the ground with angry thuds. To see Raito failing at something left Teru feeling incredibly pleased, but he didn't show it. He made an effort not to show any emotions at all, including those that were roused in him by the other activity Raito practiced in his spare time – writing into a small notebook. Teru was sure that it wasn't the Death Note in disguise, but that didn't make it any less sinister. Who knew what kind of ideas or schemes were being confided into its pages? What kind of destruction would it bring? To think that he too once shared this delusion made him feel sick.

Sometimes Yagami would seek an eye-contact with him, daring him to ask the nagging question, but Teru always stubbornly averted his eyes. Ignorance was safer.

* * *

At some point, when the amount of needed work dwindled down and left them with more free time on their hands, they both found an employment outside of the house.

Yagami, or _Raito_, as Teru was starting to think of him now, had found himself an unlikely job at the local elementary school – teaching English to children. Perhaps it was not so unlikely after all; the position was at least in some way _superior_, one where some miniscule amount of power was involved. The way he gained the favor of these children so completely that wherever he went, they followed him around the village like puppies, made Teru think of the Pied Piper who once led all the town-children away,_ with rosy cheeks and flaxen curls, and sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls;_ well, not so much for the flaxen curls, here, but their eyes definitely _were_ sparkling and if Raito led them to the edge of the cliff and said "jump," they might do just that. Would he?

He was no longer sure, he thought as he bit down on the dark bread with cheese and onion, sitting on a stomp in a little clearing, with his chainsaw, helmet and safety glasses lying nearby. He did follow him here, and obeyed his every word – even if it meant becoming a logger. Surprisingly, Teru's new occupation satisfied him, as did the unexpected acceptance he found among the villagers. _Brother_, they would call him, just like that man the other day, although he didn't even know his name. They didn't call Raito anything.

Marian, his felling partner, had already finished his lunch and was now basking in the sun while taking slow, savoring drags on his cigarette, a content expression plastered on his tanned face.

Most of the morning they worked far from the others, as required by safety, but now the rest of the logging crew was catching up with them, coming to this clearing in groups of two or three, because this by far the best lunch spot in the area. Teru, too, finished his bread and neatly brushed the crumbs away from his working trousers, moving a little sideways so he could catch the sunrays. Enjoying the warmth, he closed his eyes and listened to the sounds around, which had become his habit. All the chainsaws and car engines have quieted down; he could now clearly hear the birds, the gentle breeze in the treetops, twigs crunching under the heavily-clad feet of the coming men. And of course, the men's booming voices. He had never considered the Japanese exactly quiet, but in comparison to the people here he thought them very subdued. These men were loud, rowdy. They laughed in one moment, shouted and fought in another, only to go back to laughing in the next. And they seemed to never tire of talking.

He tried to decipher the conversation of the group of men who sat down on the grass close to his stomp. There were words he knew – forest, woman, white and dance, but try as he might, he couldn't put it together in any meaningful way.

"Oi!" Marian shouted all of the sudden, "are yah listenin', broda?" he asked in his heavily accented English, looking at Teru with his charcoal eyes. Teru nodded. Marian showed him the glitter of his two golden teeth in his smile and said: "Yah wanna kno' 'bout yesinas? I tell yah. Thay're da beutifulest creatures, fo' sure. Whyte in da face with eyes like youn' deer. Hayre soft as deer fur, movin' as graycefully as wildcat. Thay dress all in whyte when thay go to this clearin' at nite t'do thair dances in da moonlite, dances like yah never seen, and thay ask yah t'dance with 'em and yah dance, 'cause there's no sayin' no t 'em. An' then yah dance an' dance an' dance, all nite lon', till da morn'n come an' yah drop t'da ground, cold as stone."

All the other loggers stopped what they were doing to look at the two of them. Teru nodded in thanks, feeling a smile creeping upon his face.

"Yah don't believe me, do yah, broda," Marian frowned in response. "Dat's fine with me. But be careful an' don't dance."

* * *

After finishing his daily share of work in the woods, Teru returned to their cellar, ate some of Mrs. Styrin's bean soup and then assumed his favorite place on the mattress he dragged under the street window, taking with him the worn-out textbook he sometimes borrowed from Raito without him knowing. It was a beginner's language textbook written in English; he skipped the introduction and skimmed through the first few lessons, containing mostly greetings and family and house vocabulary. He found that he already knew most of it, from the overheard conversations of the other loggers and villagers, but it was interesting to match what he knew from listening to written words.

_I have two children, a daughter and a son. My daughter is still a student, but my son works already. He is an office worker-_

Suddenly, his concentration was interrupted by the familiar cool voice:

"Why are you learning this when you never plan on using it?"

Teru looked up from the book, taking in the sight of Raito dressed in his usual checkered vest and pleated pants (he took great care to iron these himself), the rather formal attire he chose to wear to school, with a half-amused, half-irritated smirk on his face. He must have looked startled, because Raito continued:

"Don't give me that look. You thought I wouldn't notice that you just_ don't speak_? That I'm so absorbed in myself that I wouldn't care?"

At this, Teru had to fight anger from showing on his face. Care? What an elusive, tricky, dangerous word. _Do not use that word around me,_ he wanted to scream_, you didn't care that you ruined my dream, used me, threw away my life because of your arrogance! All you cared about was saving your own pathetic life._

He didn't scream, of course. He didn't even open his mouth, as always.

Something passed Raito's face, disappointment, maybe. He must have expected Teru to take the bait and finally snap out of his self-induced silence. Because it was true; Teru refused to speak, had so for weeks. Months, even. He lost count.

Raito's expression went back to neutral.

"Do you know what Mrs. Styrin thinks of you?" he started, his tone light. "She told me that you remind her of her little granddaughter, who went to live with her parents to America when she was three, and for one whole year stopped speaking altogether. They were worried about her, understandably, but the doctor told them that it was just the shock, and she would start speaking again in her own time. And eventually she did, in perfect English."

"I'm a little bit old for that, don't you think?" Teru replied, and his irises dilated at the sound of his voice that leaked out on its own accord, without his will commanding it, without even much coaxing from the other man. His tone was plain, stripped of all the honorifics he had been using before. He spoke as though he was addressing an equal.

"I see that your vocal chords haven't suffered any permanent damage," Raito stated matter-of-factly, but with a hint of surprise as well.

"So it would seem," Teru acquiesced. "I simply chose not to speak."

"So I gathered," Raito nodded and moved forward, lowering himself on the other end of the mattress in one swift, elegant, almost feline motion, a movement someone still recuperating from six gunshot wounds had no right to perform. He propped himself up on elbow, so their eyes were almost level, close but not quite touching. "Why start now?"

Teru was at loss how to answer this question, however expected.

"I got bored with it," he said finally. It sounded stupid even to his own ears, but it was the truth. The time for silence had passed.

Another strange, implacable expression flickered across Raito's face. "You remind me of someone I…" he started, but his voice soon faded away. Teru's eyes wandered up through the window, to the street where dusk was beginning to settle, and then back to his companion. He, too, reminded him of someone, or rather something. Not so much of Kira and all that happened, not anymore. Now, he mostly reminded him of Japan, of his whole life there. He had always thought that he had managed to live without attachments to just about anything in his life, and that he was ready to replant himself anywhere, taking into account the universality of all things human. But that was an illusion, just like when Kamo no Chōmei thought he could leave the material world simply by separating himself in a mountain hut, but the material world, though taken to a smaller scale and manifesting itself in simpler forms, followed.

Truth was that he was very firmly rooted in the culture that raised him, from simple things like what was the best blend of coffee in the vending machine he passed on his way to the train station, to the most complex rituals of polite interactions with people with different social standings. He was a small, yet perfectly functional part in a well-oiled mechanism. An ant in an anthill, if you want to be rude. He had strayed far from his anthill; for all purposes he became a man without a country, an outcast in a strange land.

"Do you miss Japan?" he asked, and again by doing so surprised himself. It must have been the solitude. Raito, too, seemed mildly surprised.

"I miss some things, yes," he said after a moment of hesitation. "Like the sound of the railway crossing. I was hearing it quite often in my dreams, when we first came here, but now it's become a rare occurrence. And school bells, too….weird, huh? _Miso_ soup and some other foods, that too. Heck, I'd gladly eat _nattō_ if it was possible, and I used to hate it. My sister loved it and she was always making fun of me because of that." Raito's eyes acquired a faraway look.

_He misses his sister, _Teru realized_. The one who loved him and he let her get abducted by Mello_, his mind immediately supplied.

"And you? Aren't you missing our homeland's cuisine?" Raito asked with forced nonchalance.

"A little. But I'm not very mindful about what I eat. I don't even have a favorite food. But perhaps a little _sushi_ or _tempura_ would be a welcome change."

The conversation stayed on a topic of food for a little while and Teru noticed Raito relaxing again. It left him feeling relieved, although why was that he couldn't fathom. Why would he care about Raito's discomfort caused by the memories of his sister – whom he hurt himself? _If Raito was experiencing sadness or guilt, it only served him right_, Teru told himself, but it sounded hollow. Later that evening, when Raito took out his notebook to write, Teru noticed that the vague sadness crept back onto his features.

* * *

When Teru came home from the woods one evening at the end of June, he was greeted by an unexpected sight: their cellar was scattered with flowers of all kinds and colors, some taken from gardens, others obviously just picked along the road. Some of the flowers were stuck in vases, most just in bottles and glasses. He reached for a brown coca-cola bottle filled with daisies, and noticed a small card lying beneath it. The card was filled with uneven letters written with a green crayon, and it said: "To my favorite teacher! Love, Kata."

He suddenly found it hard to breathe in the cellar and hastily came out, into the garden. There he spotted Mrs. Styrin, hunching over a row of strawberry plants and picking the berries into a basket. He immediately rolled his sleeves up and approached to help her, but she stopped him:

"Everybody is at the bonfire. You go too."

He didn't argue with her; it was a beautiful June evening and besides, he had never seen a real bonfire. He walked slowly toward the meadow where it was held, breathing in the scent of the early summer. When he passed a small pond on the way, he suddenly remembered Matsuo Bashō's notoriously famous haiku that they learned in elementary school: _The ancient pond/ A frog leaps in/ The sound of the water._It was strange; while he was in Japan, he never thought of it.

The jumping frog made a sound, but the briefness of the form, surrounded by emptiness on both sides suggested the long silence that preceded and followed, and the insignificance of the short action in comparison to the stillness of the old pond. _No matter how many people we saved or killed, our actions will eventually be swallowed by silence_, Teru thought as he ascended the gentle slope of the hill leading to the bonfire site.

He could already hear voices and a guitar melody; soon he was greeted by the sight of flames surrounded by people talking and singing, drinking and eating. A few youngsters were already dancing, although it was a little bit early for that. This event, as Teru learnt earlier, was traditionally held at the end of June to celebrate the beginning of the summer holidays; he wasn't surprised to find all the village children there, with Raito in their midst. Teru searched for Marian and other loggers, but didn't see anyone. They probably stayed behind in the pub. Meanwhile, Raito noticed his arrival and waved at him, inviting him to come closer. While approaching the other man with obvious reluctance, Teru ran his eyes over the pack of children. Seeing his hesitation, Raito told the children something that sent them scurrying away like a flock of mice. _The Pied Piper played his magic flute, _Teru thought as he sat down on a log-turned-bench next to Raito.

"What did you tell them?"

"I told them that I saw a firefly down the stream."

Teru's face must have showed some doubts, for Raito spoke in a tone that showed both amusement and exasperation:

"What did you think? That I was building a child army here?"

Teru didn't comment on this, intent on watching the flames dancing in front of them.

"Aren't we too far north for fireflies?" he asked a moment later.

Raito just smiled, with flickers of flames dancing in his eyes.

"Hey!" Marian's voice boomed somewhere behind his back. Before Teru had the chance to turn around, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

"I thought ya no commin'," the logger said and gave him a broad smile, letting his golden teeth glitter in the firelight. "'s good ya come. Here," Marian's brown, well-muscled hand slid into his pocket and took out a small round bottle with no label, full of clear liquid.

"Thanks, but you know I don't-" Teru started, but Marian just waved his hand with a slight frown.

"No drink w'n work 's good. No drink tonite, ya offend da bonfire. 's from my _baba. _Only da bestest apples, no rott'n shit lyke sum assholes put into theirs. Ya wudn't want to offend my baba, too, wud ya?"

Taken back by Marian's impassioned speech and feeling not only his stare, but also the eyes of other loggers, who found their way to the bonfire, Teru unscrewed the bottle and gave its content a tentative sip. It didn't make him cough, but his throat felt like it was on fire. Somewhere beyond the burning sensation there was a faint trace of flavor.

"Great apples," Teru said politely and Marian clapped his shoulder, once again showing his prided teeth.

"I told ya, friend!"

Suddenly, Teru felt the bottle moving in his hands. He looked down to see Raito's long fingers twisting it away and then bringing it to his lips. Teru watched as Raito took a long gulp and flashed Marian a radiant smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Lovely taste, very gentle. Tell your mother my compliments."

Watching Marian walk away, muttering something he couldn't understand but sounding like curse-words, Teru couldn't help but wonder at Raito's behavior. It seemed absurd, but the way he looked at Marian was almost… jealous. _I am the only person he has left from his old life; he doesn't want me to be friendly with others, because he sees me as his possession. That's all there is to it. _

Still, Teru felt a twinge of irrational joy, resembling that he felt when he painted the walls. _Foolish_, he reprimanded himself and took a drink from the bottle. The burning sensation was a welcome distraction. But the word _possession _was still ringing in his ears all the time he was drinking and trying to focus on the flames or the people who by now started to jump through them, and the burning somehow transferred to his abdomen.

Raito didn't try to start a conversation with him, but he could feel his gaze lingering on him, and he couldn't bear it. He abruptly rose from the log with an intention to go home, but just a few steps showed the true strength of Marian's gift. Overwhelmed by a bout of dizziness, Teru had to struggle to stay standing.

"We can't let you walk alone in this state, can we?" a voice close to his ear sent shivers down his spine, and gentle but firm fingers took hold of his arm. Teru tried not to look at the other man and calm his suddenly ragged breathing, but deep down he knew it was useless, that Raito could read him like an open book. A mixture of fear, anticipation and arousal all added to the heady sensation caused by alcohol and he felt like he would burst if he didn't do something soon.

Warm June breeze brought a smell of water. _The pond, _Teru realized. Seized by a sudden impulse, he wrestled his way out from Raito's grip and headed for the water. He stumbled a little, but managed to reach the pond without falling. But before he could think of doing anything else, something hit him and caused him to lose his balance. He fell, only to find himself on top of Raito who was watching him with big brown eyes.

For a moment they were silent, listening to frogs and crickets. Then Teru breathed in the rich night air that smelled slightly of raspberries and leaned down for a kiss.

Raito accepted him readily and put his hands around the nape of Teru's neck, urging him to press closer. Teru complied and deepened the kiss, while his hands fumbled to unbutton Raito's pristine white shirt. Raito's torso was white, too; not luminously white like the shirt, but white in a dim, alluring way. Teru let his hands wander down the other's body, feeling the firm muscles and slightly protruding ribs. When his hand found its way down Raito's pants, he heard a silent gasp. While stroking the hard organ, he reveled in the sounds he was eliciting, in the thought that he was the one causing them. When his hand become wet and slick, he distantly thought that it should have felt dirtier than it did.

He shifted his weight and his own arousal become even more obvious. Raito pushed him away, only to shed the rest of his clothing. Teru swallowed. Raito rose slightly to kiss him on his lips.

"Do you want to…?"

Teru felt he was beginning to shake. _God yes._ God yes he wanted it, he wanted _everything_.

"I don't have anything for-" he started but couldn't finish his sentence, shocked how raspy his voice sounded.

"I don't mind. Let's do it all the way," Ratio replied with challenge clearly written in his eyes.

It was really tempting, but Teru remained undecided. It was going to be painful for the other man, he knew. But knowing that made his desire grow even stronger. Suddenly, Teru _wanted_ to hurt Raito for what he had done, he truly did. But should he succumb to such low cravings?

Seeing his hesitation, Raito brought him closer for a kiss.

"_Please, have me_,"_ he_ whispered.

That strange, oddly sweet request had Teru completely undone. _Please, have me… _He couldn't fight it any longer. He lowered himself and started to enter the other man. The lack of lubrication made the entry slow and difficult, but after a few unsuccessful attempts that made Raito grit his tears in pain he was finally sheathed inside. And it was wonderful.

Teru wanted to go slow, but the overwhelming heat and tightness enveloping him and the realization of what exactly he was doing to _whom_ made him lose all his inhibitions. His thrusts grew faster and more forceful.

He tried to focus on Raito's face, to see if his eyebrows were still drawn together in pain, but he couldn't, his own pleasure was just too much. Then there was a little delightful moan that he knew wasn't his and it was enough to push him over the edge. He made no sound as he climaxed, but his whole body shuddered in the waves of the strongest orgasm he ever had.

Afterwards, they washed their bodies with water from the pond and lay back in the grass in silence side by side, with only their fingertips slightly touching. The sky wasn't clear tonight; instead the clouds hid most of the stars, except for one right above the middle of the pond.

Teru watched as it flickered and then disappeared behind a cloud, only to appear again… then it was gone… another flicker… he was slowly drifting to sleep, when suddenly he was roused by a tug at his hand.

"Let's go back, I want to show you something," he heard Raito say in a somewhat excited voice.

Teru rose and followed him without a thought. Watching the graceful figure of the man ahead of him, with the luminous white shirt clinging to his wet body, Teru was suddenly reminded of what Marian told him on the clearing the other day. _White in the face, eyes like a doe. Hair soft as deer fur, moving as gracefully as a wildcat. Be careful and don't dance, or you'll drop down cold as stone. _

_Oh, but I did dance, and I dropped down cold as stone, _Teru thought, his eyes never leaving the white figure in front of him. _But then I stood up, and now I'm beginning to feel warm again. _

When they reached the bonfire, it was almost deserted and the flames were burning low, with an occasional hint of blue. Raito came to the log where they were sitting and came back with a little satchel he used to bring to school with him. From the satchel he took out a familiar black notebook.

"So it begins again?" Teru asked, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Oh yes. But not in the way you think," Raito said and threw the Death Note into the fire. Before Teru could voice his shock, another notebook appeared in Raito's hands.

"I'm not taking the easy way out; I've written here everything that happened. So that we won't forget."

Teru didn't trust his voice, so he merely nodded. They watched as the pages curled and turned brown, and then eventually became ashes.

"What now?" Teru finally asked.

Raito turned to him and smiled, and for the first time Teru let himself not doubt the sincerity of his smile.

"Now, we live."

* * *

_Fin_

* * *

_A/N: Hello everyone, I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it! I've put quite a lot of work to this, so I would very much appreciate it if you left me a review.  
_


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